I read your article last night and of course various thoughts came up either in support or disagreement with the various ideas and theories you shared. It would have been better to respond last night when my recollection was fresh. I couldn’t at that time so here are some initial thoughts from the best of my recollection.

First, thanks very much for sharing because as the Bible says, iron sharpens iron. I appreciated that you endeavored to use scripture as support for your thoughts as well. Here are a few of my thoughts on your paper as I think of them now, probably out of order.

Creationism-Creationists

Notwithstanding your own definition of creationism, I have often made the claim that I am not a “creationist” because it is an ill-defined term subject to the whim of the one who would define it. What I am, is a Christian, and as such believe that God created the universe in six days. But if such a belief makes me a creationist, then I am also a “global floodist”, a Son of God-ist”, a “resurrectionist ” etc. These things I believe as a consequence of being a “Bible believing Christian” or more to the point, a Christian.

All Christians should in fact be all of those things-and more. There are those, presumably all in the camp of non-Christian, who believe that the universe is “self creating” and that it was “accidental” and non-purposeful–those are materialists;- and there are those, called Christians, who believe that the earth and the universe were purposely created by God.

Whatever your precise definition, it seems to me that those are the essential differences that matter. Do you believe the Bible’s account or do you believe science’s account is the question. As for myself, I am a Christian, and this encompasses certain beliefs– and to try to define me by one of them seeks somehow to “divide and conquer” me from the totality of my acceptance of what the Bible teaches.

Splitting the Difference

In the years up to 1850 or so, most scientists were “Christians” or at least believers in God and sought to explain God’s universe. In those days, Newton, Galileo and many others advanced the cause of science but did so without seeing a conflict between God and science, because they believed in God. Their sceince was for the purpose of illuminating God’s universe. Atheists prior to Darwin had various beliefs, but no real scientific construct to fit them in.

Darwinism and then the Big bang theory gave these Atheists a plausible scientific framework upon which to build their own system of belief. This is what led famous Atheist Richard Dawkins to say over 20 years ago that Darwinian evolution allowed him to become â€śan intellectually fulfilled atheist.â€ť

As you know, behind such doctrines or beliefs are the devil as you wrote, and you were right to see that. However, I think that you have failed to see that some of the false beliefs that they’ve put out there have “survived” and caused good men to react by seeking a way to harmonize what the Bible says with what science says. I think that you’ve rightly seen much of that which is false, but have assumed that some of what merely props up the system to actually be scientific and true (when its not) and that this then needs to also be incorporated into your Biblical belief system.

This results in my opinion to splitting the difference between creationism (Christianity) and materialism (Atheism).

On the Origin of the Universe

The First Law, of Physics, or the First Law or the Conservation of Matter and Energy states that: “Matter can neither be created nor destroyed” (matter can be converted from one form to another). This is true, and is believed by all science and scientists, but what are its implications?

The implication of the First Law is; either the Universe is eternal, that it has always existed, or; that matter and energy were created outside the laws of this Universe itself (because within the laws of the universe matter never could have been created). As to the first, hypothesis; the Universe can not be eternal because of the Second law of Physics; entropy.

That is, all systems become more unstable over time, break down and eventually stop–unless more energy is put into the system. Unfortunately for those who believe the universe is eternal, the amount of matter and energy has remained constant because no matter is being created or destroyed (first law). The Universe cannot be eternal where entropy exists. It would have wound down by now. Put another way, the universe is like a clock that eventually winds down -unless it is rewound (energy put in).

This is why there is a “big bang theory”; because Christians and materialists agree that the Universe had a beginning. Now if it had a beginning, how was matter created when given the laws of this universe, matter cannot be created (or destroyed)? The answer is that the Universe was created by someone or something–outside of the universe itself and outside the laws of this Universe itself.

This points, rather plainly to a Creator who can work outside the laws of this universe-and who can create the laws under which the universe will exist. Genesis, Hebrews and John 1:1 tell us that the Lord Jesus Christ, was the actual Creator. One thing I take note of is that Hebrews says that He “sustains all things”. This is continuing and ongoing.

â€śLong ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, 2but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also created the worlds. 3He is the reflection of Godâ€™s glory and the exact imprint of Godâ€™s very being, and he sustains all things by his powerful word. When he had made purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, 4having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.â€ť (NRSV Hebrews 1: 1-4)

Note this with that in mind; there is something called the “Quantum Enigma”, this is something that science keeps close to the vest and that you won’t hear from materialists. The enigma is an offshoot of “quantum mechanics” a set of principles underlying the most fundamental known description of all physical systems; more fundamental than classical mechanics and classical field theory.

Cutting to the chase, scientists have discovered an enigma that can only be explained if the universe is “conscious” in some respect. My own theory is that the universe exists in the “mind” of God. If you want to read about this enigma, hereâ€™s a link: The Quantum Enigma Online

This idea that the universe exists in the mind of God may at first seem trivial or possibly like bad science fiction. But I have Max Planc, Nobel prize winner in physics and one who some call the father of quantum theory backing me up as it were:

â€śAs a man who has devoted his whole life to the most clear headed science, to the study of matter, I can tell you as a result of my research about atoms this much:

There is no matter as such.

All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particle of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together.

We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind. This mind is the matrix of all matterâ€ť.

Again, scripture in the form of a letter written by the Apostle Paul to the Collosians says much the same thing when describing the “Incomparable Christ”:

“He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.

For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authoritiesâ€“all things have been created through Him and for Him.

He is before all things, and in Him all things hold togetherâ€¦Col 1:17

On Evolution

In early 2008, a bear was shot and killed and discovered (in Alaska?) to have been part grizzly and part polar bear, if memory serves. This was thought to be a big deal. Over the years I’ve been sent snarling emails by non-believers asking about; polar bears on the ark, or penguins or other cold weather creatures and asked where did they find these in the desert of Palestine or in Turkey etc.

The answer is of course that there probably were no polar bears on the ark. There were however, bears. The mating of those two types of bears last year showed that by and large bears can mate with bears. The polar and grizzly bears are just examples of the variation already built in by the Creator. (Also there are penguins that live in South Africa so they only needed penguins on the ark, not Arctic penguins)

You mentioned the “evolution” of plants and animals by breeding. This is the use of the genetic variation already built in to all plants and animals. The mistake Darwin made, and one that I believe you are making–and that in fact materialists and evolution defenders make is that this variation is “evolution”. This is in fact the intentional breeding of inherent characterics which were built in so that plants and animals could adapt to the various environments on earth.

What you can’t do however is to create a new species using this inherent variation. You cannot make a dog into a cat for example. Unfortunately, this ability (to make a new species by using inherent variation) either by man or by “natures” intervention is exactly what is needed for “evolution” to work or to be true.

I don’t know how long the polar and grizzly bears were separated–hundreds of years, maybe a thousand–but because they were still bears, even after this long time, they could still breed. Lions, tigers, panthers are all from the same stock and can breed. So can, wolves, dogs and foxes. So, yes there is the ability for animals and plants to adapt–but there is no ability for them to evolve. This is a myth.

Stephen Jay Gould, famous Harvard evolutionist said; “The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology. The evolutionary trees that adorn our textbooks have data only at the tips and nodes of their branches â€¦ in any local area, a species does not arise gradually by the gradual transformation of its ancestors; it appears all at once and fully formed.”

This guy, the most famous paleontologist of the century, an ardent evolutionist, confirms the Biblical text:

Gen1:11 Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so. 12 The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. 13 And there was evening, and there was morningâ€”the third day.

24 And God said, “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, creatures that move along the ground, and wild animals, each according to its kind.” And it was so. 25 God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.

Gould lets out perhaps the worst kept “trade secret” in history; that there are no transitional forms and that each species appears in the fossil record, “fully formed”. If a non-believing scientist admits what the Word of God states, how does a Christian continue to believe that perhaps God created using “evolution”? There is no evidence that this was the case either in scripture–or in the fossil record.

But letâ€™s go further. This is what Michael Denton, PhD, an evolutionist said about The Disappointing Promise of Molecular Biology for the Theory of Evolution–in an article of that name; â€śInstead of revealing a multitude of transitional forms through which the evolution of the cell might have occurred, molecular biology has served only to emphasize the enormity of the gap.

We now know not only of the existence of a break between the living and non-living world, but also that it represents the most dramatic and fundamental of all the discontinuities of nature.

Between a living cell and the most highly ordered non-biological system, such as a crystal or a snowflake, there is a chasm as vast and absolute as it is possible to conceiveâ€¦.

Molecular biology has also shown that the basic design of the cell system is essentially the same in all living systems on earth from bacteria to mammals. In all organisms the roles of DNA, mRNA and protein are identical. The meaning of the genetic code is also virtually identical in all cells. The size, structure and component design of the protein synthetic machinery is practically the same in all cells.

In terms of the basic biochemical design, therefore no living system can be thought of as being primitive or ancestral with respect to any other system, nor is there the slightest empirical hint of an evolutionary sequence among all the incredibly diverse cells on earth.

For those who hoped that molecular biology might bridge the gulf between chemistry and biochemistry, the revelation was profoundly disappointing.â€ť…….Michael Denton, Phd

Darwin himself, no doubt a cheerful sort, whined; “the number of intermediate varieties which have formerly existed on Earth must be truly enormous. Why then is not every geological formation and strata full of such intermediate links?……….this perhaps is the most obvious and gravest objection which can be urged against my theory”.

Yes. Exactly.

There is no need for a system of thought that seeks to incorporate both “creationism” and “evolutionism” as you’ve defined them. The Christians (creationists) are right!

On the Age of the Earth and Ape men

Believing that science was reporting the facts in a straightforward and unbiased manner, certain Christians sought to harmonize the “cave-men” who according to science lived millions of years ago with scripture which suggested that man was created in God’s image a few thousand years ago.

This is what has happened since; all of these supposed ape men have turned out to be either men or apes–there are no creatures now thought to be transitional between apes and men. That is why the search goes on for the missing link. Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon, whose early depictions caused some weak kneed Christians to formulate the “Gap theory” -in order to protect the Bible from science, have in the case of Cro-Magnon been recognized as fully modern; in the case of Neanderthal all but a few stubborn scientists also recognize as being fully human.

In a way, the ape-men bolstered the supposed age of the earth as millions and billons of years old. This is because if there really were ape men and cavemen–some Christians wondered, when did they live and where did modern man come from? In reality, the caveman existed only in the mind’s eye of evolutionists and on the canvases of illustrators for science publications. The DNA and the artifacts found with these men prove that they were simply men-some of which lived in caves. As an example, a scientist in Germany managed to sequence Neanderthal DNA and found that it matched “modern man’s” to 99.999%. This is the same degree to which your DNA matches your next door neighbors.

In his book “Shattering the Myths of Darwinism”, Richard Milton, a science writer, in the chapter called “Rock of Ages”, on dating methods relates that, Dr. Melvin Cook, a physical chemist, and then a professor of metallurgy at Utah University and a world renowned expert on explosives, was prevented from publishing a book entitled “Anomalous Chronometry in the Atmosphere and Hydrosphere” because it provided direct evidence of the short-time chronometry of the earth and its oceans.

This chapter of Milton’s book relates the various problems with all “scientific” dating methods and reveals the wide disparity of results achieved using the various methods and the basic problems with each method. His summation aside, clearly you must understand that there can be no objective way to date the universe or the Earth–only a set of assumptions, some built on top of other assumptions, none of which can be proven or unproven.

Milton gives an example of one errant, published, reading using the potassium-argon method. This method was created specifically to overcome some of the problems inherent in other dating methods such as radiocarbon or uranium lead. Volcanic rocks from Mount Kilauea, which were known to have been created in a volcanic eruption in 1801 gave a potassium-argon date of 3,000,000,000 years.

Milton ends that chapter with this:

The fact is that presently it is impossible to say with any confidence how old the earth is, beyond the obvious fact that it predates the calendar of human history’.

Conclusion

Materialism is a system of beliefs intended to provide a way to be intellectually fulfilled as non-believers in God. Evolution is one of its major tenets as is an old Earth, made necessary only because evolution requires it. If you have the opportunity to read their own writings and combine that along with logic, it is easy to see that these systems of belief are “faith based” and not supported by objective evidence.

I understand that in the past, the Catholic church and perhaps other denominations either adopted or co-opted some of the customs of foreign peoples once converted and included those customs into their versions of Christianity.

There is no need to sully the faith of Christianity with that of the faith of Materialism. No need to explain cave-men or ape-men. These are not mentioned in Genesis so that there is no need to stretch the text and no need to “protect” the Bible from the advancement of science. There is no need for a way to explain vast ages before Adam and no need to explain how creatures evolved. This has not occurred as verified by the science of breeding, by biology and by the fossil record.

2 Responses

The idea of evolution by natural selection is provably false. It rests on rampant assumptions, speculation, and extrapolations (such as the peppered moth obsession). It is as much a matter of faith as is creationism. It is not science. Creationist beliefs also have problems. An objective analysis of both sides reveals insurmountable problems. An alternative to both is clearly required. The evolutionists, hamstrung by â€śgradualism,â€ť will never explain the origin of consciousness or of language. But if we recognize the inefficacy of gradualism, and if we recognize that the accepted interpretation of the Genesis creation account has its problems as well, and if we consider a new perspective, a rational paradigm presents itself. (Pardon my breathless sentence.) We must revise our world view. Check out

Good article by Wynne-Jones–an excellent summation. There are a few points I would like to discuss. Jim’s comment about both sides having problems is interesting. The account in “Genesis” is not inaccurate, I believe, but incomplete. Our British friend is right to emphasize the term “Christian” over the use of qualifiers. Either one accepts the entire Bible, as received, or one is not a Christian (hence the need for qualifiers). This most emphatically includes “Genesis” and “Revelation”. Both books are anathema to the liberal “Christian”. We are warned against fence-sitting many times in the Bible. God is said to vomit out those who are lukewarm–neither hot nor cold. Dawkins would be easier to convert than one of these smug, wishy-washy liberals. Fence-sitters not only get splinters but make good targets for both sides.

“Science” is merely a way of observing the phenomena, or particulars, of God’s creation–and a fairly recent way. It is a philosophical tool for deconstructing God’s universe. Faith allows us to believe that Jesus holds it together; science allows us to examine what is being held together. I am minded, though, of T.S. Eliot’s caution (FOUR QUARTETS): “After such knowledge, what forgeveness . . . ?”

I differ from Wynne-Jones, and others, regarding the “big bang” hypothesis (we need to remember the difference between theory and hypothesis). I believe the universe was created much the way we see it now. The Morrises, Ken Ham, and others have shown that “redshift” and other phenomena are illusory, as indicators of a universe expanding from a “cosmic egg”. One has to ask the question, “Why would God bother?” This cosmology usually posits an explosion-stasis-collapse-explosion cyclical model, which mocks God. When God created our world, He said it was “good”.

Wynne-Jones is bang on about micro-evolution vs. macro-evolution, or variation within species as against speciation. The latter is unobserved, unprovable, and anti-Christian. The concept of “kind” is the only taxonomy the Bible needs. There is only one “kind” of Man. Our tripartite nature is unique and God-breathed.

So, Jim, I’m not sure what your “rational paradigm” is. . . . Thanks for the tip on Strickling’s book; I will sek it out.–Dan Moore